1950s | C20Ceramics

May 13

Rorstrand “Mon Amie” Marianne Westman

Marianne Westman's first design for Rostrand was Mon Amie, released in 1952 - based on her earlier drawings of white Labrador tea flowers.

Elle Keramikk, Norway

The Elle Keramikk AS studio/factory operated in Norway near Oslo between 1942 and 1967. They produced a wide variety of pottery, but have become best known for their beautifully decorated, patterned fajance pieces. I used to come across the odd piece from time to time, but haven’t in a very long time now.

If you want to learn more about this charming pottery, go to the blog Elle Keramikk ,written by Trond Rødli (you will need to use an online translater platform for English).

Trond’s website has a comprehensive amount of information from years of collecting Elle pieces. The information includes many of the signatures, labels and hundreds of wonderful examples of Elle Keramik from this distinctive Norwegian Pottery.

Below are a few examples I found on Etsy. I can not locate the few archived images I had some years ago.

Diana Australia, Fish Ramekin Set

Have a look at this fabulous and fun set of fish ramekins or bowls from Australian pottery “Diana” c1950s, possibly early 1960s.

They are made from slipcast earthenware, as most production pottery would have been at this time. Typical of the colours of this time – which all work so well together. I like the attention to detail like the grey shading on the exteriors, the hand painted eyes, and the fins which have managed to survive intact for about 60+ years.

The stamp you see on the base of one of them below is of course depicting Diana the Huntress (Roman Mythology), the logo of this pottery during that era.

If you are not familiar with Diana Pottery, see my previous post Diana Australia (which has further links for more of the history of this pottery)